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Childless couples and empty nesters would pay more under ObamaCare, Garance Franke-Ruka writes in The Atlantic. When she looked at eligibility “for subsidies through the exchanges in New York state — where insurance is comparatively expensive and the state exchange was set up in such a way as to not provide lower rates for younger people” — she found that a family of two that earns more than 400 percent of the federal poverty level — $62,040 — doesn’t qualify. “But if that same couple lived together unmarried, they could earn up to $45,960 each — $91,920″ — and be eligible.

2014 or bust

Next year will be make or break for Senate Republicans, Charlie Cook writes in the National Journal. “Because in 2016, when all of the seats they won in 2010 come up — they netted a six-seat net gain that year — there will be 24 GOP seats up, compared with only 10 for Democrats, leading to some serious Republican overexposure. Seven of the 24 GOP senators up are hailing from states that Obama carried in 2012. After having had plentiful Democratic targets in 2012 and 2014, it will be Republicans in 2016 who will have the most incumbents in the crosshairs.”

“On argument days, a buzzer sounds about five minutes before the oral argument starts,” she writes. “The justices go to the robing room — the court’s version of a locker room. Each justice has a locker; attendants help the justices fasten their robes. Then the justices, without fail, engage in a wonderful custom. Each justice shakes the hand of every other justice before walking into the courtroom — an important reminder that, despite the justices’ occasional differences in opinion, the court is a place of collegiality and common purpose.”

She’s often asked, she says, “if — as the first woman on the Supreme Court — I had any special preferences for my robe. But honestly, I took whatever was available and put it on.” She did, however, add a white judicial collar to her black robe.